Chapter 16
Rylee
A wall of ten Faders comes down the main road of the royal city. Their white uniforms look stark under the golden torches lighting the road, the red emblem like painted blood on the full-face masks.
They’ve never attacked the royal city before that I know of.
What’s drawing them here? Or are they just growing bolder?
The roads are empty save for enforcers trying to block the invaders’ path, the small handful going down in a heap after a few cracks of those magical blasters some of the Faders carry.
Others are armed with swords or chains, others weaponless.
Erin. She could be among them. This might be my chance.
I’m off the velomage in a second, racing toward the fray, not stopping for a moment to think.
The closed doors inside me fly wide open, beckoned by my panic or my anger, I’m not sure which, and I don’t care. I let it flood me, feed off the intoxication of it all until I’m numb against the betrayal threatening to end me.
“Rylee!” Kal shouts, but I can’t stop.
One second, I’m near them; the next, I’m far ahead, zooming so quickly I barely feel it, stopping just a few feet away from the enemy.
Erin, are you here? I scan the line of Faders but can’t distinguish one from another. I need to see them move.
All right, then. I’ll make them move.
“Rylee!” Pierce yells my name, but it’s like he’s far away. There’s a pulsing, pounding thrum rushing in my ears that matches the racing beat of my heart.
“If you came here to talk, let’s talk,” I say, but my voice sounds wrong. Laced with power and a grit that must come from the hurt inside me. “If you came here to harm, you’ve seriously misjudged my patience.”
“Rylee, get back!” Axl this time, and I don’t see them, but I feel my mates racing after me.
I glance behind me, noting how far away they are.
Shit. I used Kal’s power of flight without knowing.
I focus in front of me again, waiting for a response.
The Faders don’t move.
“I will hear you,” I hedge. Maybe if I can get them to talk to me, we can come to some sort of peace. Especially if it’s my sister. “Tell your leader,” I say, hoping it will cause one to move. It doesn’t. “I’m open to negotiations for peace.”
My voice is laced with all the power inside me fighting for dominance. It coils and thrashes in my soul, through the opened doors and along the bonds and around them. I do my best to hold on to some sense of self before I become something else entirely.
Tension mounts in the silence, every second feeling like an hour while I wait.
Footsteps sound behind me, cracking the thick moment as the Legends reach my side.
The farthest Fader on the left is the first to move. He reaches behind him, pulling out a sword caked in a familiar white substance.
“No peace,” a masculine voice calls from the middle of the Faders. “You have your orders!” he yells to his group. They all shift into a defensive position. “Capture them if you can. Kill them if you can’t!”
All at once, the rest of the Faders draw their weapons and rush toward me. One pulls a blaster, then another, cracking off shots of blazing magic that soar right past me.
I whirl around, watching as Kal and Pierce barely dodge the deadly magic.
They’re not after me.
They’re after the princes.
Capture or kill.
Everything hones to that certainty, slowing my vision as four more shots light the night sky, aimed right for my mates—
I explode.